


Love Notes

by Stuff666



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bullying, Depression, Gay, Love, M/M, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2020-11-02 11:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20727656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stuff666/pseuds/Stuff666
Summary: When you draw on your skin, the same thing will appear on the body of your soulmate. When you get injured, your soulmate can feel your pain.Everyone knows this.But when one soulmate isn't allowed to draw on himself, it makes things a little difficult.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> uhhhh, i'm quickly become reddie trash, so here's some reddie soulmate au. this is a universe where pennywise doesn't exist, but the losers are still all bffs, duh. enjoy!

Richie Tozier is four when the first doodles appear on his skin. They are nothing important, just the loops and swirls of a small child with a marker. They are gone within minutes, and the skin on the back of his hand smarts for ten minutes from the harsh scrubbing the drawer had received. He takes care to not draw in response because even at such a young age he can guess that his soulmate would get in trouble for having things on their skin. So Richie vows to never ever draw on himself until his soulmate tells him it’s okay. 

***

Eddie Kaspbrak is four the first time he draws on himself. He knows that it isn't allowed, that his momma would be very mad if she saw, but he heard some older kids say that if you draw on yourself, your soulmate can see it. He doesn't really know what a soulmate is yet, but he likes the idea of someone seeing what he draws. The marker is washable, but that doesn't stop his momma from yelling at him and scrubbing his hand for way longer than was needed. He stays up all night waiting for something to be drawn on his hand too, but nothing ever comes. 


	2. Hello There

“This is such bullshit!” Richie tilts his head back, his glasses slipping down his nose, then snaps it forward. His glasses clatter to his desk, but at the moment he doesn't care. The exam sitting on his desk stares back up at him, the words foggy without his glasses to make them clear. He scoops the glasses up and jams them back on his face, the words clearer now but still not making any sense. 

He can hear his teachers disappointed tongue-clicking as he curses under his breath again, but he doesn't care. The exam was bullshit, school was bullshit, and he was full of bullshit too. He should have studied, but instead, he had stayed up all night reading some stupid comic he had filched from the store down on Main Street. The comic hadn't even been that good. He could have written better jokes if he had been the one writing it. 

“Hey, Trashmouth shut the fuck up. Some of us want to write the exam.” he can't pinpoint the voice, but he throws up his hands in a middle-finger salute behind his back.

This makes the teacher stand up and snap at him, which raises a chorus of snickers and giggles from the rest of the class. Richie just glowers down at his desk and tries his best to keep his mouth shut. The last thing he needs is the teacher to get pissed enough at him that she makes him stay for summer school or some shit. He needs his summer. Summer means free time and his group of friends and… He lets his thoughts trail off there. They had been going in that direction for a while now, and every time they did he tried to shut them off. Most of the time, he succeeded. The times that he didn't, well, he tried not to think of those times. 

By the time the final bell rang, he had been able to get some answers down on his exam paper. Hopefully, they would be enough that he wouldn’t fail. He didn't need to be the kid that repeated ninth grade. He watched his classmates handing in their papers, some of them scrawling messages on their arms to talk to a hidden someone. He looked away from that, down to his own blank arms. He could never write first. He always had to wait until his someone wrote him. 

The soulmate thing had always confused him. Sure, it had been explained to him by his parents when he was little, the same way it had been explained to everyone. If you get hurt, they feel it. If you write something on yourself, they see it. The only thing you couldn't write was your name. Something stopped you if you tried. You couldn't even write down descriptions of yourself, of your location, until you were eighteen. Something always stopped you. 

Those things Richie understood. But the thing that confused him, he mused as he went to hand his paper in, was the how. How did this all work? What makes it work? No one knew, despite research going into it. It was just the way of the world. He shrugged to himself as he left the room, too lost in his head to notice the boys standing on either side of the door until they had him by the arms.

“‘Sup faggot.” the grating voice of Henry Bowers filled his ears, and Richie felt himself stiffen in fear. “Excited for the summer?” Henry’s jagged nails dug into the bare flesh of his forearm, and he winced. “I know I am. Two whole months of no homework, no school, and no teachers to see when I do this.” he twists Richie’s arm, and he lets out a yelp. 

“Fuck off Bowers.” he spat, wrenching his arm away from Henry, then pulling his other away from Belch on the other side. He knows fully well that they’re only letting him go because they’re all standing outside a classroom. He shoves through the rest of Henry’s gang, listening to their jeers and taunts as he walks down the hall. 

***

Richie doesn’t stop moving until he finds himself in the Barrens. The rest of the Losers hadn’t shown up yet, which meant that they wouldn't see him crying. The tears had started unbidden as soon as he left the school grounds, making his glasses fog up and slide on his face. There were dark marks on his arms where Henry’s nails had dug in. Cursing his luck, he yanked his sleeve down as far as it would go. He didn't want to look at them. 

He pulls it back up a moment later, as the phantom feeling of a felt-tipped marker traced across his skin.  _ Hello there stranger. Everything okay? I felt something here. _ An arrow pointed to the points where the nails dug in. Richie scrambled in his pockets for a pen, pulling one out and writing a response.  **Hello there. All is well, just a dick-wad at school. Likes to torment me cuz of my glasses. Glad I’m done for the summer.** It is awkward to write at this angle, but Richie tended to follow whatever lead his soulmate gave to him. Usually, it was placed where the writing wouldn’t be visible, but today seemed to be the exception. 

He watches as the writing is scrubbed away, only to be replaced by new words moments later.  _ I’m glad you’re not too hurt. I was worried. I hate knowing you’re in pain. _ He scrubs his own words away, giving himself room to write a reply.  **And I hate knowing you can feel my pain. That just makes the pain so much worse.** The next words aren't a sweet reply, but a quickly scrawled _ my momma is back, gotta go _ that is erased in an instant. Richie scrubs away the words on his own arm, tugging the sleeve back down over the scabs. 

He flops to the stony ground, watching the Kenduskeag flow sluggishly past his feet. Talking to his soulmate was so difficult. They had an overbearing mom, and apparently, she hated the sight of anything on her child’s skin, from bruises to dirt to writing. She also hated the idea of them talking to a stranger, even if that stranger was meant for them. It resulted in short, stilted conversations between them, and in them barely getting to know each other at all in the ten years since the first time Richie can remember them writing. 

The sound of familiar voices drew him from his thoughts, and he looked up to see Ben and Beverly coming over the hill. They were hand-in-hand, as they had been since Bev had joined the group, and Bill had noticed that the idle poetry Ben had written on his hand had shown up on Beverly’s too. Shaking himself from his moping, Richie waved to them and they splashed through the low waters to join him. 

Soon, his idle depression had been washed away as the familiar feeling of being accepted, of being cared for wrapped around him. The rest of the Losers soon converged on their location, and they began planning the summer. Their laughter filled the air, none louder than Richie’s as he cracked stupid joke after stupid joke, most of which only Eddie or Ben laughed at. He didn't care though. He had his friends, and that was enough. Even if they all had shitty senses of humor. 


	3. A Hideout

It is two weeks into the summer when Ben makes his big reveal. He had been spending a lot of time alone since school ended, and not even Beverly knew what he was doing. Jokes had been tossed around that he was cheating on her, but she had always brushed it off with a laugh. Everyone knew that there was no way he was, after all. 

He led them through the woods until they came to a tiny clearing, indistinguishable from every other little clearing around them. Indistinguishable, until Ben shifted some dead leaves around and revealed a wooden door embedded in the ground. When he opens it, it is to reveal a dimly lit pit in the ground. From the angle that he stands, Richie can’t see much, because of how dim it is, but he can see that the pit looks clean and carefully made. He looked over at Ben with wide eyes, as did everyone around them. 

“I figured we needed a place of our own, ya know? A hideout of sorts.” Ben’s smile is bashful, but it grows as everyone begins smiling and laughing and pestering him with questions. Bev is beaming, her eyes not leaving the face of her soulmate. 

“Well c’mon then, let’s take a look.” Mike jumps into the hole, his feet landing with a thump on the hard-packed earth below. Bill follows him, and Richie can hear his stuttering words of exclamation from below. There is a moment of silence followed by Mike’s low laugh, and everyone shook their heads. The two thought they were subtle, but everyone knew exactly what that silence meant. 

Soon, everyone had piled into the hideout. It was a little cramped, but there was lots of room for them all. Eddie kept looking around with wide eyes like he was worried about the germs and nastiness about being underground. Not that Richie was staring at him though. Of course he wasn’t. Ben was talking, but Richie wasn't listening. No, he was too focused on the boy across the room.

Soon the group was sharing jokes and stories about what they had been up to over the couple weeks of summer. Ben had been out of the loop for a while since he had been so focused on building the hideout. They filled him in on near misses with the Bowers gang, on sneaking out of their rooms to meet in the Barrens at night. Mike and Bill were pressed against each other, but none of them cared. As long as they were happy and safe, the group was happy. 

About two hours into their little gathering, Richie stood up to go outside, and accidentally slammed his head into the ceiling of the hideout. The roof was low, and he had hit a growth spurt over the couple weeks of break. He cursed and went outside, rubbing his head as he took a piss. When he re-entered the hole in the ground, he couldn't help but notice that Eddie was rubbing his head too. 

“Everything all good Eds? You hit your head too?”

“Nah, just got a wicked headache all of a sudden. Better not tell my momma about that. She’ll be sending me to the ‘mergency room before I know it.” Eddie laughed along with everyone else, and Richie forced one too. But inside his mind was spinning. There was no way, right? It had to just be a coincidence. That’s all. A silly coincidence. 

***

That night he lay in his bed, head still spinning from the thoughts running through it. There was no way it could be him. No way at all. Surely he would have noticed it, right? Eddie was his best friend. They spent so much time together. He would have noticed if Eddie was his soulmate. He knows he would have. It must have just been a weird headache. Eddie was sick all the time, after all. 

Suddenly, he couldn't take it anymore. He sat up, grabbing the marker he kept on the bedside table. There was no rule about asking your person their name if you thought you knew it. They just couldn't write their own names. Uncapping the marker, Richie began to write on the inside of his forearm:  **Hey, can you talk? I have to ask you something important. Like, really really important. **

For a moment, there was nothing. Then came a blinding explosion of pain on the back of his head, then another across his face. Richie cried out, hands going to cover his eyes. He knew there was no pain actually happening to him, but it still hurt. But what hurt more was know that his person was going through this in real life and that he had brought it on.

He raced to the bathroom to scrub it off, to scrub away the words that had caused this pain. He was cursing himself the whole time, he knew the rules, he knew not to write unless written to first. Why had he been so stupid? As he was scrubbing his arm off, new words began to appear.  _ I don't know who the fuck you are, but don't you ever do this again. Leave my child alone.  _ The words hurt, clearly they had been written with a pen pressed too hard. It was gone again within moments, but Richie still got the message, loud and clear. 

Still cursing himself, he went back to his room, head still throbbing, tears running down his face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is so short and so shitty and took so long, university has been kicking my ass.


	4. Realizing

It's another week before the Losers see Eddie again. Bill mutters something about how he’s been sick, and everyone swallows it up. Richie doesn’t buy it, but there is no way to explain why to his friends without them thinking he was crazy. He still desperately wants to talk to the other boy about what he suspects, but there’s no way to do that when Eddie is locked up in his mother’s house. Everyone knows what her stance on boys being together is. Any vague notion about another boy being her baby’s soulmate might kill her. 

The hideout became a constant hangout zone for them. New rules were quickly put in place, however, after Bev opened the door to find Bill and Mike hastily pulling their shirts back over their heads and both of them stuttering up a storm. The first, and only, rule was quickly pinned to the wall of the hideout: no funny business. The two weren’t soulmates, but they definitely enjoyed each other’s company. Neither of them had any desire to find out either, which made the events following Eddie’s return to the group so much tenser.

The seven Losers sat shoulder to shoulder in the ground, the open hatch in the ceiling letting fresh air waft in. Richie was in the middle of them, telling them all some crazy story that none of them believed, as per usual. As part of the joke, he spun around with his arms spread out, aiming to catch one of them by surprise with the palm of his hand. Stan was the only one who didn't lean back fast enough. But it was Bill who let out a cry of pain.

Everyone froze, their eyes flicking back and forth between the two boys. Bill was cupping his face in the exact spot Richie had slapped Stan. Mike was the first one to move, standing up and digging in his pockets. He finally pulled out a pen, thrusting it towards Bill. 

“Write something. See if it's true or not.” his jaw jutted out, and Richie could see the muscles clenching as he ground his teeth together. “Stan, out your hand out. I want to see this with no doubts.”

Bill’s hand reached out, fingers shaking as much as his voice normally did. He popped the cap off, letting it hit the hard-packed earth below their feet. Everyone looked at Stan’s hand as Bill drew a simple smile on his own skin, and sure enough, a match showed up on Stan’s skin. 

“Fuck this.” Mike pulled himself up out of the hideout, his eyes wide and filling with tears that he tried to blink back. “Fuck this. Fuck both of you.” Bill shot up after him, calling his name in stuttering bursts. 

Stan just sat there, eyes no leaving his hand. 

“Did you know?” Ben’s voice broke the silence. “About Bill?”

“I suspected. We’ve written a couple of times, before him and Mike…” his shaky voice trailed off. “When he told me he had a boyfriend, I stopped writing. That was when I started thinking it was him. Because the very next day, the two of them announced they were dating. And then during the rock fight, I watched Bill get hit in the arm and I felt it.” tears are falling freely down Stan’s cheeks now, and Richie reaches out to wipe them off. 

“Let’s get you home, Stan the man.” he tries to keep his voice light, but when he meets Bev’s eyes he knows that she wears the same look of devastation he does. Richie just shakes his head and helps Stan out of the hideout.

They take the long way home, winding their way through Derry’s side streets, Richie trying to crack lighthearted jokes the whole time. Stan smiles, but it is clear they are all fake. When they reach Stan’s house, Richie offers to stay the night with him, just so he’s not alone, but Stan just shakes his head. “My parents have guests over. That means I can’t have anyone over.” with a roll of his eyes, he disappears into the house. 

***

When Richie makes it back to his own house, he is unsurprised to see his parents are gone. It’s still the middle of the day, and they do have jobs. Not having any idea where the rest of the group vanished off to, he figures he might as well just stay home. He goes into the garage, climbing into the loft where he has his own little hideout. When he gets to the top of the ladder and reaches for the light, he realizes that it’s already on, and a small boy is sitting in a pile of blankets.

“Eddie? What are you doing here?” 

Eddie looks up from the comic book he’s holding, eyes wide. “I figured you’d be up here at some point, so I decided to wait for you. It’s been a while Trashmouth.”

Richie laughs, but he’s busy scanning Eddie’s face. He hadn’t wanted to before, incase on of the others noticed, but now that it was just them he could. Sure enough, there are the faded remains of a bruise on Eddie’s cheekbone. “Why didn't you just go home?” 

Eddie looks away. “Momma isn't home right now and I didn't want to sit in an empty house.” his voice has the faint wobble in it that always shows up when he tried to lie. 

Richie shook his head and climbed the rest of the way into the loft. “Okay, wanna give me the truth now Eds?”

“Momma said I don't have to be home till four and I’m not going home a minute before that.”

Settling down outside of Eddie’s blanket cocoon, Richie sighs. “Can I ask you something important Eds? Like really super important, and you have to promise not to lie to me?”

Eddie’s eyes widen, but he nods. He closes the comic book he holds and sets it on the ground, turning to give Richie his undivided attention. 

“Does your mom ever hit you?” the question tumbles from his lips in a rush. It wasn't the question he had been planning on asking, but now that it was said he wouldn’t take it back at all. 

Eddie has tears in his eyes before he even opens his mouth to answer. “How do you know?”

“Because I felt this.” Richie reaches out a hand and rubs a finger over the faint bruise. “The other night. I wasn't thinking and I needed to ask you something and I forgot to not write until you wrote to me first.”

“You mean, you think, you’re my…” his voice shakes and skips as he tries to ask too many questions at once. 

“See for yourself.” there’s a collection of pens and paper up here, and Richie passes a pen to Eddie. “Just like with Stan and Bill.” he keeps his hand extended, waiting for Eddie to draw something. 

Instead, Eddie stands up, dropping the pen. “If you really are the one I’ve been writing to, that means you’re the one that caused this. That caused my momma to get angry.”

“Eds, no. I just needed to know if it was you and I wasn't thinking. I never wanted you to get hurt. I didn't think your mom would hit you!”

“Clearly!” Eddie spat. “I thought you were my friend Richie. I can’t believe you would do this to me.”

“Eds c’mon, I didn't do it on purpose. I didn't know it was you. I’d never want you to be hurt.”

“Don't call me Eds! You know I hate it. And so what if you didn't know, you suspected. You know how my momma is, you know what she’s like. That's why we made that stupid rule in the first place!” tears are streaming down his face, matching the tears that are pooling in Richie’s eyes. He makes for the ladder, and Richie shoots up.

“Please don't leave Eddie. Can’t we talk about this?” he takes a step towards the shorter boy, but Eddie shakes his head. 

“No, Richie, I’m gonna go home.”

“Fine. But will you at least let me prove that it really is you? I don't want to keep on guessing.” he stoops, picking up the pen and holding out to Eddie once again, who takes it after a moment’s hesitation and begins to write. 

Richie is too transfixed by the  _ hello there  _ that blooms across his skin to notice Eddie retreating down the ladder. It is only when he holds out his hand for the pen that he realizes he is gone. 


End file.
